A joyful Easter Sunday–and a birthday dinner at Michelle’s, shared with our niece and nephew.

And…

For about 15 years now I’ve been in a lupus study at UCSF, the current focus being longterm SLE patient outcomes. There is an annual phone call of an hour to an hour and a half.

That call was scheduled for Friday, and we got through most of it–but the woman’s voice was giving out and you can’t talk softly to my hearing. She apologized that it had been an intense week and sorry about her voice and could we finish the memory testing part next week? Maybe Thursday?

Yes, sure, of course.

Then, with some hesitation, she told me why she was so stressed: her mother had just been diagnosed as being terminal.

Oh honey!

Which is why I found the ever-so-slightly-grayish-ice-blue Venezia merino/silk in my stash, very soft, and got right to it: the sheen of the morning light across the San Francisco fog for where the daughter lives, warmth and love to the both of them, whoever they may be.

A chemo cap. A little bit of knitting. It’s nothing and it’s everything.

This is just another reminder that if you gathered all of the people in the world who don’t have any problems, they could meet in a teacup. Assume that everyone you meet is going through a major crisis, treat them tenderly because of it, and you won’t often be wrong.